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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to not want her back in my home?

188 replies

Bowrito · 09/02/2019 05:42

This is long winded but I don’t want to drip feed.
We have Carers that come each morning, 6 days a week to help me get my son ready for school. He is non mobile, non verbal but the loveliest boy who unfortunately needs quite a lot of care. The Carers are a small team of 3 that are rostered by an agency and only one a day is needed as I do most of the care myself.

This week my DS was sick and out of school so I cancelled his Carers from Monday-Thursday. He was sleeping in and I didn’t want to wake him at 7 if he was unwell. By Thursday he was better.

Thursday evening I had 2 missed calls from a number I didn’t know which I didn’t answer. Then a message from one of his Carers asking if she was needed on Friday. I replied straight away saying he was much better and would probably be going to school but that I couldn’t 100% say until the morning, that she could leave coming in and I would email the agency. If I do the canceling the Carers are still paid for their time.

On Friday morning this lady arrived at 7.30 when I was dressing my son in the living room and I smiled and said I hadn’t expected her as I’d replied she didn’t need to come in. She had such a bad attitude saying I had told her to come in, I asked her to read her texts again. When she did she said she had misunderstood and in future to be clearer. She asked if my DS was going to school, signed her agency attendance book and left! I read her note and it said ‘mother asked me to leave’ I did not. Throughout the brief conversation I was smiling as my son was there and I was in great form as he was better.

But now I’m pissed off, AIBU to be?

I don’t want someone in my home with an attitude.
If you’re rostered to do a job, come in and do it - don’t be texting me hoping for a morning off.
She should have gone through the agency to ask for the morning off and not me directly.
She was also 30 minutes late if she had thought she was due in.
She saw me struggling to dress my DS but didn’t help just walked out in a huff.
But I’m mostly annoyed that she didn’t interact with my DS. He doesn’t know she’s a carer he thinks she’s his friend. She said hi to him but that was all she was too busy arguing with me.

Do I give her another chance or has a line been crossed now and she will always be rude to me?

OP posts:
blueskiesovertheforest · 09/02/2019 09:38

You're doing the right thing not doing anything and observing how the next two shifts go. You say your son likes her and that's more important than whether you do as long as you don't have cause for concern about the care she provides.

I think you massively over thought your text replies in terms of what it's and maybes and wrote very colloquially which is incredibly open to misinterpretation. I work in a language which isn't my mother tongue and it's incredibly frustrating when people offer waffling colloquial stream of consciousness rambles and expect you to read between the lines to work out exactly what they want. Luckily people are quite straightforward where I live and not upset by being asked for clarification, but I can imagine that being harder in the UK and your carer thinking she'd understood then panicking that she'd got the wrong end of the stick.

Springwalk · 09/02/2019 09:59

Bluntness

Op did not ask the carer to leave.
The carer lied by writing in the book that she did, and then walked out.

That is the whole point!

lottiegarbanzo · 09/02/2019 10:02

I couldn’t 100% say until the morning, that she could leave coming in and I would email the agency. English is my first language and I find this very unclear.

Leave where? is where my brain goes. Leave her home? Leave your home? Leave her home and come in to yours? Reading the whole sentence I do understand you - but only because I'm a native speaker who comprehends English idiom and the ways it is commonly mangled. 'Leave it' is just about comprehensible when there's an obvious 'it' in play but still idiomatic. 'Leave comng in' is just gibberish.

You would email the agency if what? If you needed her? Or if you didn't need her?

Missed calls, not your fault. If she wanted a response she should have left a message.

ChardonnaysPrettySister · 09/02/2019 10:10

I would have thought that when the carer came and OP said she hadn't wanted her then that's why the carer then wrote that she was asked to leave by the mother.

Did you actually send an email to the agency?

It's all as clear as mud and I'm afraid mostly from your side OP.

the carer was unprofessional calling you though.

GloryforGloves · 09/02/2019 10:12

I do think you are source of confusion. Like many other posters here, English is my first language and I’m struggling to comprehend your posts.

I couldn’t 100% say until the morning, that she could leave coming in and I would email the agency.

But you didn’t contact the agency, so if she didn’t turn up it would have looked like she’d not done her job from an agency point of view.

I think it was rude of you to say ‘read your text again’ actually because like most posters I completely understand her confusion. And you told her quite clearly that actually you meant you didn’t need her. You said ‘English isn’t her first language’ so writing ‘Mother asked me to leave’ seems a perfectly reasonable substitute for ‘Mother said I’m not needed’.

Bluntness100 · 09/02/2019 10:32

Springwalk, I think thr take away is its hard to understand what the op wanted. She says when the carer arrived she told her she wasn't expected and didn't need to come. Which could have indicated to the carer that she wasn't required.

As said the key point is, it's very hard to understand exactly what the op wanted. So I'm not sure what chance the carer stood of understanding it.

FredFlinstoneMadeOfBones · 09/02/2019 10:39

The thing is it doesn't matter if OP was unclear or there was confusion. The carer was paid to be there so she shouldn't be disgruntled that she turned up (and she was half an hour late to boot). She shouldn't have been rude to OP when she could see she was struggling with her son, she should have helped and she shouldn't have lied in the book.

Stormy76 · 09/02/2019 10:40

It sounds like a misunderstanding, if English isn’t the first language then you need to be very clear with your communication and your message wasn’t clear. You should have apologised for not being clear in your message. You are lucky that you have good carers so don’t allow this to become an issue.

ILoveMaxiBondi · 09/02/2019 10:51

Op I understood your text perfectly and think people are being deliberately obtuse here.

Also, I think it’s massively out of line for the carer to contact you on your mobile when all contact is supposed to be through the agency. She is not supposed to contact clients directly! I would be asking the agency how she got your number.

blueskiesovertheforest · 09/02/2019 10:56

FredFlinstoneMadeOfBones she wasn't necessarily lying. It sounds as if the OP told her that she wasn't needed and shouldn't have come. Given the op uses confusing double speak like "leave coming in" to someone she knows isn't a native speaker, it's not surprising if the carer believed the mother was telling her to leave.

ChardonnaysPrettySister · 09/02/2019 10:56

Yes, the point is that unless OP cancelled with the agency the "leave coming" text didn't really matter, and the carer had to come in only to find she wasn't needed after all. There was no need to rub the carer's nose in the texts again, because what mattered was the email to the agency which wasn't sent.

No one is deliberately obtuse, I perfectly understand that OP has a difficult time with her children, but I do think she could have been clearer and she ought to have cancelled with the agency.

pineapplebryanbrown · 09/02/2019 11:10

I can understand that she may have been confused and decided to err on the side of caution. I don't think saying "mother asked me to leave" is a lie, just an approximation of how she interpreted the situation rather than a complete untruth.

But she could have been more pleasant and given you a hand. Did you say "oh, i didn't expect you but now that you are here can you help me with x x ?"

I think there's an overall lack of clarity. Sometimes I'm surprised by what EAL speakers miss and forget what is open to more than one interpretation.

RestingBitchFaced · 09/02/2019 13:15

It was a misunderstanding, these things happen. I would let it go, and give her another chance. Your text was not clear, so you are partly to blame

Travisandthemonkey · 09/02/2019 13:25

Blimey you sound like hard work. Of course she was annoyed. She was allowed to be annoyed. If you employ someone and you mess then around and are not clear they are allowed to be annoyed.
Clearly you have no idea how people interact in the real world.
She didn’t shout, she wrote wHat was true in her book.
It’s one of the hardest shitty badly paid jobs. And I would imagine when you do that job and get messed around (even if it is a misunderstanding then it’s bloody awful) it’s a terrrible feeling.

dustyfan · 09/02/2019 13:25

Your post made sense.

Whether or not your text made sense didn't matter once she was there. Since she had turned up, and he was well, and he needed care - she should have stuck around to do it. Her attitude is shit.

Travisandthemonkey · 09/02/2019 13:26

She was told to leave. How was she supposed to just get on with it.

notangelinajolie · 09/02/2019 13:33

I would interpret 'leave coming in' as 'leave it as it is and come in'.

FlagFish · 09/02/2019 13:57

Op I understood your text perfectly - but, clearly, the carer didn't. Otherwise, she wouldn't have turned up when the text told her not to. And then the OP tells her to "read her texts again" - how patronising!

OP you would be very unreasonable to make a complaint about this.

CantStopMeNow · 09/02/2019 14:06

"Leave coming in" is actually very self explanatory, people are just being pedantic about the wording.
She could have asked someone else to read it if she was really that unsure about it's meaning.

I think she understood perfectly well what you were saying - just like her grasp of english is good enough to write down a blatant lie in the attendance book.

Yes, she may sti;ll get paid if her visit is cancelled within 24 hours - but that also means she would be first on-call to cover any emergencies/staff absences for that time period.
Whereas the way she played it she now has the morning free without being expected to be on-call etc.

She's just covering her back by blaming you for her not working the shift.

In your shoes i would complain.
All else aside, she has broken your trust by deliberately and blatantly falsifying her attendance record.....what else is she prepared to falsify or not be honest about?
If it had been a genuine misunderstanding on her part she could have simply written the truth -"not needed today - misunderstanding re text from client".
She has disregarded the rules re personal contact and probably breached some GDPR rules by getting your number from a 3rd party. This whole 'misunderstanding' could have been avoided if the Carer had stuck to protocol and confirmed her house visits with her employer.
Your ds might like her but the way she ignored him whilst there shows she doesn't really care.

The lying, deliberately falsifying records and breaching company police - not to mention the stinking attitude - would be enough for me to stop using her.
She was confident enough to behave like this with you -and in front of you.....what else has/is going on when you're not around to observe?

WhenISnappedAndFarted · 09/02/2019 14:30

Just because you understand it, doesn't mean people are being obtuse or pedantic because they don't understand it. It isn't the clearest of texts especially for someone whose first language isn't English.

IWantMyHatBack · 09/02/2019 15:09

It's not clear at all, it's a really weird way of wording it.

Aridane · 09/02/2019 15:12

”Leave coming in" is actually very self explanatory, people are just being pedantic about the wording

Well since all but a handful of posters are baffled as to what it means, clearly not

Aridane · 09/02/2019 15:13

Bloody hell - ^cantstp* is even more. OTT / UR than the OP!

cherrytreesa · 09/02/2019 16:37

YABVVVVU. You didn't contact the agency as you said you would - your fault for the misunderstanding.

Original poster
Bowrito · 09/02/2019 16:49

I didn’t contact the agency to cancel the shift as I needed a carer on Friday morning. If she hadn’t of called and texted I wouldn’t have contacted anyone to change the roster.
I was not rude at all to her in the house, there was no need for her attitude but I will give her another chance as my confusing text caused her frustration. However There shouldn’t have been a text, she shouldn’t have contacted me as she was rostered to come in at 7am.

OP posts:
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